[tlinux-users:08848] Re: Official Linux support (Was: P105-9722 issues..)

On Jan 30, 2008 8:53 AM, bestonnet <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- Thomas Charron <[email protected]> wrote:
> > There is currently no updates to say, the graphics
> > drivers so that they actually function without known
> bugs.
> Just get the drivers from nVidia, pretty much every laptop
> manufacturer has old graphics drivers on their web site.

  They will not function without significant user editing of the INF
files.  The issues with the Video Card fan, for instance, are
primarily due to MXM power management being present without being
advertised by the BIOS.  If you attempt to force an install of non
vendor supplied drivers (Laptop vendor, not component vendor), you
will end up with internal temps around 110 C, and very poor
performance.

> >   Unfortunately, the cost is negligible when the kernel
> > development team offers free development efforts.
> There will probably be some involvement from lawyers and
> depending on what they are releasing they may have to do an
> audit to ensure that Toshiba actually does have the right
> to release it and if there are sections that are
> copyrighted by others then they'll need to negotiate to
> release them (which would not be guaranteed).
> That actually will cost Toshiba money.

  Negative.  The same BIOS that is utilized by the P100/105 laptops is
also being utilized by other laptop providers.  And technically, this
information is already advertised 'incorrectly'.  I have a hard time
believing they would have an issue releasing the 'meant to be public'
address and register information when it would already be redaily
available if it was implemented correctly.

> When it comes to releasing the information there are
> probably a lot of people in Toshiba who would like you to
> have it (in fact most of the people there would) but to be
> able to release it they will probably need to show that
> Toshiba will lose significant business by not doing so.

> The 'consumer models' are those in the Satellite and Qosmio
> series, anything which is based on a Satellite will
> probably also have a Phoenix BIOS (which means all of the
> Satellite Pro and some Tecra models).  I'd expect the
> Portege and Libreto models to have a Toshiba BIOS.
> A laptop with a high end video card would be considered
> very desirable by gamers (who were probably a (the?) major
> target market for that model).

  Toshiba disagrees.  We specifically got these laptops after
reviewing system specifications from the Toshiba business pages:

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/laptops.to?coid=-26368

  Direct from Toshiba:

Feature Packed Widescreen
The Satellite(R) P100/P105 series features next-generation Intel(R)
Centrino(R) Duo Mobile Technology and professional-grade graphic chips
to meet the high demands of multimedia users, creative professionals
and gamers. There's also robust sound through the built-in
harman/kardon(R) speakers.

-- 
-- Thomas